How to Community Calendar!?!

We regularly receive inquiries from people who would like to build a community calendar but are unsure how to get started. That's why, in this blog post, we'd like to share the knowledge we've gained from five years of building and operating EINTOPF – Kalender für emanzipatorische Politik und Kultur im Kessel. EINTOPF has grown into a remarkable project with more than 100 groups and thousands of events, but getting to this point was far from easy.

Surprisingly, EINTOPF was launched during the COVID pandemic — a time when events were hardly a priority. Nevertheless, it was clear that other times would come again, and we wanted to be prepared for them. In EINTOPF’s case, there was an additional challenge: not only did we have to operate and promote the calendar, but we also developed the entire software ourselves. That wasn’t really necessary, since alternatives such as Mobilizon and Gancio already existed at the time. However, they didn’t offer exactly the features we envisioned, and, frankly, we simply enjoyed programming. Eventually, on May 1st, 2025, the EINTOPF software officially became LAUTI, which is now used by various communities in different cities and countries.

Where to Start?

One thing we realized early on: a single person is not a community. 🙂 And working together is much more enjoyable. So if you’re alone and want to build a calendar, try to find like-minded people. It significantly increases long-term motivation and sustainability.

You should also think carefully about what kind of calendar you actually want to run. Is it for a thematic community or a geographically defined one? What kinds of content do you want to feature, and what kinds would you rather exclude? Who should be represented on the platform? It’s worth defining these questions from the beginning and documenting them in a statement of principles so that interested groups and individuals can understand whether their organization or events are welcome.

People Matter More Than Technology

Of course, you will need to decide which software to use for your calendar. As mentioned earlier, there are dedicated calendar platforms available, and even WordPress with a calendar plugin could be an option. In Germany, however, most city calendars are actually custom-built websites, often based on WordPress or Drupal. We generally advise against reinventing the wheel unless you genuinely enjoy doing so. 🙂

Obviously, we recommend LAUTI — surprise. 😜 If you have any questions, feel free to contact us.

If you don’t have the technical skills to host the calendar yourself, look for allies — perhaps a local IT collective that can support you, or alternatively reach out to us.

But the choice of technology quickly becomes secondary compared to the real challenge ahead: How do you make people aware of the calendar? And how do you solve the chicken-and-egg problem? Without events, there are no users, and without users, nobody sees a reason to publish their events on your platform.

How do you break this cycle? Quite simply: by talking to people. In the beginning, focus primarily on the groups and organizers whose events you’d like to see on the calendar. These conversations will also reveal who you can rely on to contribute content regularly. Usually, these are people who immediately recognize the value of the project and want to support it. And don’t be afraid to be a little persistent. In the end, everyone benefits from a thriving alternative platform that reduces dependence on Big Tech.

During the first two years, we also relied on cold calls because we naturally didn’t have direct contacts with every group or venue. We maintained a list of groups and sent them invitation links via email. Put some effort into these emails and include a short personalized message instead of sending a completely generic template to everyone.

Don’t expect too much from this method—the success rate is probably below 20%. But don’t get discouraged. Some of the groups that initially never responded eventually approached us on their own later and joined the platform. Persistence pays off.

Another way to give the calendar an initial boost is by creating a few important events yourself so that the platform looks more active. However, there’s a risk that groups may get used to this and start relying on you to do the work for them. We recommend using this approach very sparingly in the beginning and only publishing events yourself in exceptional cases later on. Groups need to understand that you are “only” providing the platform. They are responsible for the content.

We also heard about another approach in a different city: the organizers manually created group profiles, venues, and events in LAUTI. They then contacted the groups and handed over pre-configured user accounts as a kind of “starter kit”. We cannot yet say how effective this method is, but we’ll share more once additional experience is available.

There are also various ways to make people looking for events aware of your calendar. We invested in a basic set of promotional materials, including stickers, flyers, posters, and a hand-painted banner for events. Beyond that, your creativity is the only limit.

You should distribute flyers and posters at as many participating venues as possible. Even more important, however, is direct personal interaction. Demonstrations and events attended by your target audience are excellent opportunities to approach people directly: “Have you heard about the new non-commercial calendar in …?” Most people will gladly take a flyer.

For us, the phase during which we actively promoted EINTOPF and invested many hours of work lasted roughly two to three years. After that, the calendar had reached a level of recognition where it largely sustained itself. From that point onward, new groups began approaching us regularly to become part of the platform.

Moderation

There are several reasons why a community calendar should be moderated. On the one hand, our understanding (although we are not lawyers) is that German law requires it because you are providing a platform where others can publish content. This means you are responsible for removing illegal content, at the latest once you become aware of it.

On the other hand, it’s naturally in your own interest to ensure that the content published on the calendar aligns with your principles and goals.

Over time, we identified two different moderation approaches. One option is to review and approve every piece of content before publication: new groups, venues, and every individual event. This gives you direct control over all content, but it can become extremely time-consuming as the platform grows. If you fall behind, users may become frustrated because their events are not published in time.

For that reason, we chose indirect moderation, which is currently the only moderation model available in LAUTI. Under this approach, groups and venues are reviewed once when they join and, if accepted, receive an account. They can then publish content independently without requiring approval for each individual event. Administrators simply review events from time to time to ensure everything remains within the agreed framework.

To make decisions collectively, we use Loomio and initiate a two-week 6-step consensus process for every application. If concerns emerge, we communicate them to the group together with a proposed path toward consensus. If no consensus can be reached, the group cannot become part of the calendar.

Digital Security

Depending on the type of community you serve, different digital security requirements may apply — for both you and your community.

As operators, you should consider how easily you can be identified through running the calendar. If local laws require you to publish your name on the website, think carefully about measures that can make identification more difficult. At the very least, you should avoid publishing your home address. For example, you could ask friendly organizations or venues whether you may use their postal address. Alternatively, paid mailbox services are available.

Other aspects to consider include identification by your hosting provider, domain registrar, and, of course, your internet service provider while administering the server. Various privacy-focused services can help improve your protection in these areas.

The best way to protect your users is to collect as little data as possible. This means minimizing or preventing the storage of IP addresses in server logs and being conservative with usage statistics. Avoid Google Analytics and similar data-harvesting tools, and instead use privacy-friendly alternatives such as Plausible or Umami. Enable IP anonymization wherever possible, and ideally host these services yourself.

For LAUTI, we chose to store as little information as possible. No account is required to browse events, and creating an account only requires an email address and a nickname. Beyond that, no user profiles or tracking data are created.

A Long-Term Commitment

As mentioned before, successfully building a community calendar requires patience and persistence. Be prepared for several months — or even years — of continuous work, with periods of intense activity alternating with quieter phases.

However, based on the growing adoption of EINTOPF and the positive feedback we continue to receive, we can confidently say that the effort is absolutely worth it.

If you already run your community calendar and want contribute your experiences, reach out to us via matrix or our Fediverse channels and will gladly update this article.